Rickety democracies

This article addresses the narrative and discursive structures underlying popular Peruvian political phrases disseminated through social media, word-of-mouth communication and mainstream media between 2016 and 2022. One goal is to reveal how these constructions suggest patterns of interaction and societal weaknesses. Another goal is to propose a qualitative approach using a narrative semiotics perspective to analyze the structure of these types of objects of study. Four relevant interconnected structures were distinguished: (1) structures of generalized and (2) compartmentalized distrust and (3) structures of vertical and (4) horizontal shame. They all serve to understand how the generalization of distrust and the rise of horizontal shaming in Peru expose the incoherence between a publicized democratic image and a reality characterized by deep social fractures.